Verbs

Lessons about verbs from //Mechanically Inclined//:

//Lesson: From Past to Present - It's About Time ... and Effect (Anderson 119-)// In this lesson, students rewrite a sample paragraph from past tense to present tense and discuss how it changes the meaning. Students also freewrite about a personal experience and then rewrite the paragraph from first-person perspective to third-person perspective and then discuss the differences between the two. Students discover the patterns, singular and plural, the different effects, and their options as writers. I particularly like this lesson because it focuses on the meaning and effect of language.
 * Subject-Verb Agreement**

//Lesson: The Verbs - They are A-Changin' (Anderson 121-123)// Inflected endings (-s, -es, -ed, -ing) are often dropped in speech and writing. In this lesson, students take leads (the first couple of sentences) from the books they are reading and change the tense and point of view of the sentences, making sure that they still make sense. This allows them to notice the patterns related to verbs, which will be collected on a chart. This is another great lesson that incorporates craft with mechanics instruction.
 * Dropped Inflection Endings**

//Lesson: You Can't Have It All - If He/She/It Has Anything to Say About It (Anderson 124-125)// In this lesson, students discover the pattern of the auxiliary verb // have //and how the third-person singular breaks the pattern. The students help fill a chart of how the verb // have // is used. Students then fill in blanks from sentence samples, discussing how they know which form to use.
 * //Do// and //Have// Agreement Errors**

//Lesson: Easy Does It - He/She/It Again (Anderson 125-126)// In this lesson, students discover the pattern of the auxiliary verb //does// and how the third-person singular breaks the pattern. Students are presented with sentences where the verb is removed. They must decide which form of the verb is appropriate and discuss why. They also work on filling a chart of the verb's pattern.

//Lesson: Who Took the Verbs Out? (Anderson 127-128)// In groups, students work on a passage from the mentor text that has some words removed. They must decided what kind of words are missing and what should fill the blanks so that the passage makes sense. Then, as a class, they discuss their choices: "which tense did they choose?" Did they stick with it? Why or why not?." Then get the students to discover that they should agree; show them that writers take time to make their verbs agree to make meaning clear.
 * Unnecessary Shift in Tense**

//Lesson: Verbs Still Making Students Tense? (Anderson 128-129)// In this lesson, groups of students are given an envelope of words to categorize. The words are a mix of past and present tense verbs and the students can categorize them in any way they see fit. Then the class discusses how they categorized the words, getting them to recognize that they are verbs. The students then categorize the verbs into past and present. They receive a passage that has the verbs removed and they must decide which verbs to use with the passage, getting them to discover that it makes more sense when the verbs agree.


 * Online Resources**

Subject Verb Agreement This is a website lists the rules for subject and verb agreement in a way that is accessible to both teachers and students. This website also offers quizzes to help assess learning.

Purdue OWL: Making Subjects and Verbs Agree Another great website that shows the rules of subject and verb agreement. Purdue Online Writing Labs is typically aimed towards College students, but this page looks simple enough for adolescent students.

Video: English - Subject/Verb Agreement A short video about subject-verb agreement. The video is very simple and straight to the point and shows students how to check their work for subject-verb agreement.

References

Anderson, Jeff. // Mechanically Inclined: Building Grammar, Usage, and Style into Writer's Workshop //. Portland, Me.: Stenhouse, 2005. Print